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Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Bonjour-Hi

There is a secret code for folks shopping in Montreal: when in a store, the clerk will often say Bonjour-Hi. And then you pick in which language the rest of the transaction takes place. At first, I tried to do these transactions in my poor French, but that just caused confusion and frustration. So, I just would say hi and move on in English. This is pretty cool for a city where people speak multiple languages.

Well, unless your job is to enforce French supremacy. Don Macpherson has a piece today about how the language police office is upset that 13% of transactions in downtown Montreal begin with Bonjour-Hi. Worse, the Liberal language rep is "concerned." Oh, please. This is all just posturing for the language nationalists. That sales folks want to make customers feel comfortable by operating in their language of choice, 13% of the time downtown, that is, is something to be concerned or irritated about?

Ah, the joy of misplaced priorities. This, I will not miss. Absolument non.

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Stephen M. Saideman

Intro

Greetings! I am a political scientist, specializing in International Relations, my research and teaching focus on ethnic conflict and civil-military relations. I watch way too much TV, and I like movies as well so I tend to write about both and find IR stuff in pop culture. I rant alot about American politics and sometimes about Canadian politics. I like to take ideas I once learned a long time ago and apply them to whatever strikes my fancy.